Sundays at 8 will never be the same …

By JOHN HANSEN

Jan. 25, 2002

For the last few months, there’s been a lot of talk about how “The X-Files” (8 p.m. Sundays on Fox) has become so much worse now that David Duchovny — and his alter-ego Fox Mulder — have left the show. A lot of the criticism is from people who are no longer watching the show.

It’s a shame to realize after all these years that it wasn’t the aliens and monsters and creepy cinematography and moody music that hooked people, it was a guy who got bored with the whole thing after eight years and decided to make ground-breaking movies like “Evolution” instead.

Granted, Mulder is an icon — the phrase “The X-Files” immediately conjurs images of the wry, dedicated FBI agent in a basement office who “wants to believe” — and the chemistry between Mulder and Scully (Gillian Anderson) was a big appeal of the show. But why can’t the pundits give Chris Carter a chance to make lighting strike twice?

The two new inhabitants of the basement office, John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) are only in their first full year together but they’ve already developed a strong rapport. Oddly, while franchises like “Law & Order” and “Star Trek” can shift casts without losing many fans, a show about aliens and paranormal activity can’t survive the transition. Due in part to dropping viewership, Carter has decided this season will be the last.

While “The X-Files” is not the best show on TV (a position it could make a case for during the mid-‘90s), it’s still very strong. The show has its problems, but Doggett and Reyes are not among them. Both Patrick and Gish have that professional-yet-slightly-quirky flair that defines an FBI agent in Carter’s universe, and given time, they’d be as fully developed as their predecessors.

The most recent episode, “John Doe,” was a powerful hour exploring Doggett’s past. As he begins to recover his memory, he relives the experience of his son’s murder. Some interesting Reyes tidbits have surfaced as well: she’s not shy about stirring up trouble and making tough choices — in “4-D” she chose to kill an alternate-universe Doggett in order to get the real Doggett back.

The problems with “The X-Files” have more to do with the lagging mythology episodes (there wasn’t anything too memorable about the two-part season premiere besides Lucy Lawless parading around naked) and the writers’ insistence on clinging to the whole Mulder-Scully story. First, they had Scully have Mulder’s baby, which was weird since the entire M-S romantic saga took place off-screen. Now Scully has a baby who might be a superhuman hybrid and she desperately misses Mulder, who is hiding from some vaguely defined bad guys. I know it’s sacrilegious to say it, but Scully should have left when Mulder did.

So when it comes to the final episodes of the series, here’s my plea to Carter: give Doggett and Reyes the spotlight. Do a story about what happened to Doggett’s wife, explain a bit about Reyes’ exit from her previous post in New Orleans. Avoid the temptation to have one last cameo from Duchovny and actually give the characters who are in the opening credits a little love.

Grade (Season 9, episodes 1-7): B+

FOND FAREWELL

“The X-Files” (1993-2002, Fox) is the best sci-fi show ever made. In the last couple years, the media has been obsessed with looking back at the salad days of Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). We all know how great they were, but what’s not said enough is that Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Reyes (Annabeth Gish) found their own brand of greatness in Seasons Eight and Nine.

Mulder and Scully were both so asexual that I never really bought into their romance (and never really cared anyway). Doggett and Reyes, on the other hand, lit up the screen as a prospective couple. The gritty Patrick was the best actor on the show, and while Gish never got a chance to explore her character fully, she stood out as the only one of the agents who ever smiled.

The alien mythology episodes got most of the press (often negative in recent years), but “The X-Files” really shined during the monster-of-the-week episodes. The concept of mood as a surrogate storyteller (thanks to composer Mark Snow and a roster of brilliant cinematographers) has had a lasting influence on both TV and film.

— John Hansen, “TV RIP: Five shows that will be missed,” NDSU Spectrum, Sept. 13, 2002